Sometimes it's particularly obvious that comics are ultimately a matter of taste.
Take, for example, "Return of the Dapper Men" (Archaia, $25), by comics writer Jim McCann and gallery artist Janet Lee.
"Dapper Men" is a surreal, "Alice in Wonderland" sort of adventure, about a land named Anorev ("Verona" backward, although I don't know why) where time has stopped, populated entirely by anthropomorphic robots and children under 11 who never age.
Then the 314 Dapper Men show up. They are identical men dressed in green derbies and tailored 1920s suits; none has a name, nor do we know why they're "returning" when nobody remembers them, nor why there are 314. They jump-start time, and our heroes -- a boy named Ayden and a silent female robot named Zoe (A to Z; but again, I don't know why) -- must learn about night and change, and, by extension, aging, aided by the only Dapper Man who speaks (albeit cryptically).
It's a pleasant, light morality tale, full of potential to prompt children to ask questions about growing up, and surely all the whimsical, unexplained elements are allegories or allusions. Or maybe not. When the talking Dapper Man says, "Nothing is the same after it's cold," he's referring to death, right? Or is it just a throwaway line about tea? I just don't know.
I suspect there are things I'm simply not catching, since I enjoyed McCann's work on "Hawkeye and Mockingbird" for Marvel, where he showed sure-footedness in story structure and, if nothing else, the cliffhanger.
But let's leave aside the story, which is probably meant to be little more than a fairy tale (albeit a surreal one). Because the real star is the artist, and Lee does not disappoint.
Archaia editor-in-chief Stephen Christy told Publishers Weekly in December: "We don't have a big-name writer, a big-name artist or a hugely established concept -- let's just make sure the quality across the board is phenomenal." And I think they succeeded.
